


The Domestic Crime-Fighting of Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint

by doctor_funkinstein



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/F, One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29294886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor_funkinstein/pseuds/doctor_funkinstein
Summary: London, circa. 1890. It's not easy to be an interspecies lesbian crime-fighting duo in a world that is still yet to realise that women are capable of independent thought, but, somehow, with the help of Strax (blissfully unorthodox himself - the kind of fella that keeps recreational grenades in the pantry where the beans should go), Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint make it work.
Relationships: Jenny Flint & Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint/Madame Vastra, Madame Vastra (Doctor Who/Original Character(s), Madame Vastra - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

Paternoster Row had always been swarming with street urchins. Their frostbitten toes stuck out of boots that had been grown out of years previously, and their grubby skin flashed through the holes in the trousers that were both torn to shreds and far too short.

The first time Madame Vastra saw Jenny slipping a guinea to a boy sleeping rough, she was enraged. She worked in with these ghastly primitives, even accepting one into her service, only for her money to be passed onto filth? 

The second time Madame Vastra saw Jenny slipping a guinea to a boy sleeping rough, she had pretended not to notice. It had taken some amount of will for Vastra to remind herself that, once passed onto Jenny, it was no longer her money and she henceforth had no right to say where it went.

The third time Madame Vastra saw Jenny slipping a guinea to a boy sleeping rough, she had considered her maid with a new empathy. Perhaps it was the gentle ebbing of her hatred for this world, or the growing respect she had for her maid, or the everlasting memory she had of the young girl surrounded by prowling, grown men in the darkened streets; with no home to go to for years of her life, Jenny was using her newfound privilege with care. She was being kind.

The fourth time Madame Vastra saw Jenny slipping a guinea to a boy sleeping rough, she increased her maid's pay. Neither her nor Jenny had any need for the money - such as it was they were making enough - so it would be almost hostile to hold tens of pounds close to their warm, clothed, fed chests.

The tenth time Madame Vastra saw Jenny slippiny a guinea to a boy sleeping rough, she had taken the arm of her maid come partner and remembered what it was that had made her fall in love. 

Paternoster Row had always been swarming with street urchins. Their toes were warm and unscathed inside boots that fit them well, and their trousers, mended with patches expertly sewn, always came right down past their ankles


	2. Perils of Monotony

The realisation of their affections was not what it could have been. Madame Vastra had, for so long, felt nothing but hate for the world she found herself in; she had consumed herself in nothing but loathing for such a time she was entirely unsure if she could remember how to feel anything else. And, well, Jenny - Jenny didn't know how to let herself be cared for. All her life, she was told she couldn't be - that real, proper love was felt by woman for man; she didn't know that what she felt for her mistress was indeed, love, as it had always been labelled by others as something that had crawled straight from Hell with Satan's gleeful mark etched into its forehead.

Two women, floundering for company in a world that had turned them out, both entirely in love and both entirely unable to do anything about it.

That, Jenny had decided, was the problem. When one completes mindless tasks such as scrubbing the floor, one has time to think - and, eventually, Jenny came to realise that the mutual exile she shared with her mistress was exactly what had jammed them together.

Ironically, it was exactly what had pried them apart, too.

Vastra was a woman out of her time. The world she knew was gone - a new language, a new climate, a new dominent species - and had been replaced with one that seemed to be designed specifically to hunt her personally. She had closed her eyes under a world of lush green and social advancement and opened them to an invasion of the sickliest grey.

_Those tunnelers were either malicious or ignorant,_ as she had once said, _and I cannot decide which is worse._

Only the Madame had gotten it wrong. It wasn't malicious _or_ ignorant - no, that would be kind - they were malicious _and_ ignorant. For Jenny was an outsider here, too. Jenny was the poster girl of the street urchin - rough, scabby knees and a rougher tongue, with hands so quick they could take anything from anyone. This world _was_ designed specifically to hunt her personally. It was designed to hinder the whole working class. And-

Jenny shoved the mop into the bucket a little more violently than she perhaps ought. It bucked and sloshed water across the flagstones on the floor. She _wasn't_ to think of that. If she thought of _that_ , it may just slip out of theory and into practise. 

An image flashed through Jenny's mind. 

Scales, hundreds of them. Sparkling in the light of the summer sun. A face so angular in its perfection that it caused flecks of sunlight to dance across the cobbles of the street as if reflecting from a mirror.

_No_.

The mop slapped against the flagstone viciously.

Two outsiders, forced together. 

Paternoster Row was the only safe place in all of London, and, yet, within its walls, the inhabitants moved in a cautious avoidance, for any ability to be truthful with another had been burned away by the flame of the fiercest instinct of them all.

That of survival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes this is angsty as hell but like. i feel like this is a really interesting avenue that's open to be explored


	3. A Beginning

Jenny pushed the door to the sitting room open with her hip, full were her hands with a tray of tea paraphernalia. Her shoes sank into the thick rug as she walked over it to place the tray on the small table between the two wingbacks angled towards the fire. Sat rigidly in one was Vastra, holding a photograph up in the flickering light of the flames.

"That man from today," Vastra ventured, "the one dressed all in black..."

"That was a woman, ma'am," Jenny corrected, clasping her hands in front of her. She watched the wood as it burned momentarily, wondering what Madame Vastra's eyes saw. Even more so, wondering what her heart saw. What would a fire mean to a reptile?

"When in doubt, look at the legs," Vastra muttered, more to herself than Jenny. "If it's a skirt, it's a woman."

Jenny nodded and straightened out her own skirts. "What of her, ma'am?"

"Why was she dressed so turgidly? It makes for a rather grim sight, don't you think?"

"She's mourning, ma'am. He was her husband, wasn'ee?" A cautious curiousity crossed Jenny's mind as to what the Silurian etiquette was in terms of death.

Vastra frowned; due to the dim light, Jenny couldn't see it on her face as much as hear it in her voice. "Husband?" she asked. "What is a 'husband'?"

"They were married," Jenny offered, gingerly. Upon seeing Vastra's unmoving expression, she continued. "Entered into unity before God. Swore to love and protect each other. Start a family, have kids, all that."

Recognition sparked across Vastra's face. "Ah, yes, of course. The human equivalent of-" a word entirely impossible for anyone but a snake to say "-I would imagine."

Jenny simply nodded and went along with it. They both knew she didn't understand and lacked the tongue for Silurian (once described as "wide, stumpy and useless" by Madame Vastra), but also knew that contextualising things would help Vastra understand. "Tea, ma'am?"

"Please."

Jenny leaned down over the teapot and began to fill one of the cups.

"Are you married, Jenny?" The question was borne of curiosity - she wanted to understand the details of the human version of this ancient ritual, and personal experience of her maid could be a huge help. 

Jenny allowed herself a moment of cynicism. The times she had sat with her mother, hearing how she must learn to sew and cook and clean and do all of those things that bored her to death to make her a good wife for a good man without ever listening because her mind was on Charlotte. "No man would have me, ma'am."

Vastra did not respond for a moment. "Or would you have no man?"

Jenny nearly dropped the teapot, but recovered. She couldn't know. Could she? "He's gotta be the right one, eh, ma'am?" She picked up the teacup with a slightly shaking hand and went to pass it to Vastra. "If I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with 'im."

"Jenny, are you sexually attracted to women?"

She dropped the cup.

Vastra caught it with a hiss. The sudden movement of her body was a stark contrast to the warrior-like stillness that made her undistinguishable from a statue she usually sat with. "This is very valuable, the damage you coul- Jenny?"

Her face had turned white; her eyes both stared right through Vastra and bore into her soul at once. Jenny couldn't feel her knees buckle underneath her, but they must've, because the next thing she knew she was sinking into a chair. Her hands shook uncontrollably now, and her chest felt so tight she could barely breathe. "W-what makes you think that, ma'am?" she whispered, barely moving at all and yet completely unable to stay still. Curses slung through her mind with a grim fear as an underlying drone. 

"Nothing, Jenny, it was simply a passing question-"

"Madame Vastra, ma'am, you shouldn't ask people questions like that." A moment of tense silence as Jenny fought to banish the pleading agony from her tone. "For a woman to be with a woman, it's not..." Her shaking voice became laden with poison. "Proper."

"Jenny, dear, I'm sorry to have caused you distress," Vastra offered - and seemed to mean it. "I should have realised this planet is not yet secular enough to appreciate love."

Jenny gave a strangled nod. The words barely registered in her mind. Her entire body felt as if it had been suspended in boiling water. At least her hands had stopped shaking. Almost.

"But," Vastra pressed on, "I want you to know that, if you are, in fact, attracted to women in that particular manner, that you are safe with me." She seemed to remember the teacup in her hand and slowly placed it back on the tray. Jenny half registered her careful attempt to not be defensive. "I am, too."

Jenny's eyes snapped back into focus and gravitated right towards Vastra's. She didn't seem ashamed in any form. Why, she said it as if she was stating that the sun was setting or the price of fish had increased again. Without shame, or fear, or prejudice - and her body was the same: her hands steady on the arms of the chair, her legs crossed casually, her ramrod back as relaxed as it ever was. No shame, no fear, no prejudice. 

For the first time in her life, a flicker of hope flashed through Jenny's heart. Maybe she didn't have to be alone. Maybe she didn't have to be scared. Maybe she wasn't wrong, or unholy. At least - she wasn't when she was with Vastra.

Jenny cleared her throat. "Yes," she said, slowly, deliberately, aware she had been silent too long. She took a breath. "I am a ho-" Her voice cut out on her. She pressed her teary eyes shut and mouthed a word. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "A homosexual. I am... A homosexual." The word stuck in her throat.

That pause. As if she was trying to distance herself from the very term. 

Vastra leant a hand across and placed it gently on Jenny's.

"That's the first time I've said that out loud," she mumbled. It sounded like a confession. Maybe it was. "I fink that's the first time I've ever admitted that to myself. People don't take too kindly to it 'round 'ere."

"Primitive to discriminate on such grounds."

Normally, she would have snapped. Jenny saw Vastra's condescending attitude towards humans as self-servient and arrogant - but, this time, she agreed. "Yes, ma'am."

Vastra retracted her hand, surprised at the interaction.

"Is it different? Where you're from, ma'am?" 

"Quite." 

"I'll leave you to your tea, ma'am." Jenny clambered onto her feet. The ground felt as if it swayed beneath her. Once she reached the door, she turned back. "You mustn't tell anyone, ma'am. I- My apologies, ma'am, but you really mustn't. I know lads who been killed for it."

"Your secret is safe with me, Jenny. As are you." 

"Thank you, ma'am."

But that didn't even begin to cover it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More on Charlotte and the case later on!


End file.
